Early Years

There are several opinions about the origin of the first electronic computer. Some believe the credit should go to the individual who provided the first written schematic for the electronic computer. Others credit the scientists who developed the first working model of a system. Many, however, credit the individuals who first patented the electronic computer.

The two earliest electronic computers were the ABC and the ENIAC. The Atanasoff-Berry Computer (ABC) was built at Iowa State University between 1937 and 1942 by John Vincent Atanasoff and Clifford Berry. The ABC—designed to produce solution sets for linear physics equations—performed parallel processing, separated memory and computing functions for calculations, refreshed memory, converted numbers from base-10 to base-2, and carried out binary arithmetic. Atanasoff and Berry did not get a patent for their machine, and Atanasoff shared knowledge of ABC's construction and functions with John W...